The present invention relates generally to trimming of analogue filters in integrated circuits. More particularly the invention relates to a method for automatically altering a magnitude of at least one component value in an analogue filter and an automatic adjusting circuit for calibrating an analogue filter in an integrated circuit. The invention also relates to a computer program.
The manufacturing process for integrated circuits generally causes a degree of uncertainty, with respect to the component values of specific component types. Integrated passive components, such as capacitors and resistors demonstrate undesirable variations in component values, so-called process variations. The value of an actual RC-product in a filter may deviate as much as 30–40% from a nominal value as a consequence of the process variations. Various attempts have already been made to compensate for these detrimental effects.
For instance, the patent document JP, 11274895 discloses a signal processing circuit that is capable of making up for variations of integrated resistors and capacitors by means of adjustable digital filters. A filter coefficient switching means sets the filter coefficient values in a set of digital filters from a predefined coefficient table. The filter coefficient switching means chooses such coefficient values that any variation in a signal processing circuit being due to the variation of a semiconductor manufacturing process is compensated for.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,179,727 describes an automatic adjusting circuit for an analogue filter on a semiconductor chip. The adjusting circuit controls the filter's parameters such that its centre frequency becomes equal to a reference frequency. The automatic adjusting circuit includes a first phase detector and calibrating filter for coarse frequency tuning and a second phase detector and calibrating filter for fine frequency tuning. The first phase detector produces a signal based on a phase difference between the reference signal and the reference signal, filtered through the first calibrating filter, having a low selectivity, and, the second phase detector produces a signal based on a phase difference between the reference signal and the reference signal filtered through the second calibrating filter, having a high selectivity. A composite signal is then formed by combining the output signals from both the phase detectors. A DC component of the composite signal is, on one hand, fed back as a control signal to the calibrating filters. On, the other hand, the DC component controls the centre frequency of the analogue filter to be controlled to a predetermined ratio with respect to the reference frequency signal by automatically adjusting the centre frequency of the calibrating filters to be equal to the reference frequency signal.
The solution according to the former reference involves digital filtering in series with the analogue filter. Digital filters, however, always cause power losses and introduce a degree of distortion into the signal path. Digital filters are therefore undesired if they can be avoided.
The latter reference, conversely, tunes itself by an analogue manner to a desired centre frequency. This is, of course, a flexible solution that allows a designer to utilise one and the same filter for a multitude of applications in which different filtering characteristics may be demanded. However, the solution involves active filters that per se are relatively noisy and non-linear. This in turn causes distortion and deteriorates the filter 4 performance, which of course, is adverse.
Consequently, the prior art presents various means to either directly compensate for process variations of integrated component values or to alter an analogue filter's filtering characteristics and thus indirectly compensate for any process variations. However, the proposed solutions are associated with various unwanted side effects, such as power loss, distortion, noise or combinations thereof.